Severe Geomagnetic Storm Research Project:

A fast semi-halo CME occured late yesterday Dec.29, and appeared above
the LASCO C2 occulter at about 19:00UT in the SE quadrant. There was no
corresponding X-ray event, but EIT imagery shows an expanding arcade
forming above the extended filament channel now located just South-East
of disc center, probably indicating a filament eruption.

The speed of this CME can be estimated at 1500km/s, which corresponds to a travel time of about 2 days (+/- 12 hours).
It may thus trigger a geomagnetic storm at Earth late on Dec.31 or on Jan.1st, 2006.

Using more recent data, the Cactus CME tracing algorithm indicates a
speed of about 500km/s for the CME of Dec.29 announced yesterday, i.e.
much lower than the early estimate. Therefore, its possible arrival is
postponed to Jan.2, and it will be much less geoeffective, probably
causing only temporary active geomagnetic conditions. Outside this
possible transient disturbance, the geomagnetic field is will remain
mostly quiet.

The solar activity remains very low, and the small sunspot
groups currently present on the solar disc can only produce occasional C
flares.
The solar wind speed, as mentioned above, has decayed furher down to 500km/s and the geomagnetic activity is expected to settled down to quiet levels
over at least the next 2 days. Given its slow speed, the CME of Dec.29 could at most induce temporary active conditions on day 3 (Jan.2).

The CME due to the partial filament eruption seems to have
arrived during the latter part of yesterday, though the geomagnetic
reponse was small due to a predominantly southward IMF. The solar wind
speed is steady around 450km/s with a small and mainly northward Bz.

Geomagnetic conditions are expected to remain quiet, with slight
potential for short term active periods due to over-expansion of a fast
stream from a small coronal hole to the SW of disk centre. Solar
conditions are expected to remain quiet.

Old NOAA AR 0838 (Catania 86)
yielded a C1.5 flare before rotating over the W limb, while of the
current on-disk regions AR 0841 (Catania 89) holds the greatest
potential for an isolated C-class flare.
For more information, please, visit sidc.be..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> SIDC

In regards to the CME: solar wind shock was observed at 13:35 UTC at SOHO as the CME observed on December 29 arrived. This CME has so far not been
geoeffective, as it hasn´t caused a geomagnetic disturbance. The interplanetary magnetic field has been predominantly northwards since the arrival of
the CME.

Coronal hole coming into play by the 4th and should increase geomagnetic activity.

Geomagnetic conditions are expected to be quiet to unsettled.
The IMF has roughly doubled its intensity over the past 24hrs indicating
that we may possibly soon enter a recurrent fast stream, though other
parameters are yet to show any signatures. Solar activity is expected to
remain low to very low, though NOAA AR 0843 (Catania 90) holds slight
potential for an isolated flare before rotating over the W limb this
weekend. Source

Well, it is supposed that we will have an active weekend. Just check the Earth´s events to compare and match.

While lightning in a hurricane is not unheard of, three storms in the 2005 hurricane season produced more lightning that what is normal and scientists
are baffled to as the reason. But some are suggesting that solar activity could have been a big factor for this unusual lightning activity.

"Generally there's not a lot of lightning in the eye-wall region," he says. "So when people see lightning there, they perk up — they say,
okay, something's happening."

Indeed, the electric fields above Emily were among the strongest ever measured by the aircraft’s sensors over any storm. "We observed steady fields
in excess of 8 kilovolts per meter," says Blakeslee. "That is huge—comparable to the strongest fields we would expect to find over a large
land-based 'mesoscale' thunderstorm."

Seems as if people and some scientists are getting more aware of how solar storms affect us.

BTW, the solar quiet alert has ended. We are in a SOLAR STORM ALERT.

The small transequatorial coronal hole is now situated near the central meridian and is expected to send a high speed solar wind stream towards the
earth, arriving here in 2 days.

A CME has also been observed this night (first appearance in c2 @ 01:54), the estimated speed is around 500 km/s. It is mostly directed westward, but
it probably originated from the \'sigmoid\' just SW of the coronal hole, thus it might have an earth-directed component. Goes-12 X-ray data,
reports a LDE A7.1 flare.

A thinning and warmer upper atmosphere, plus a greater amount of ionized particles in the ionosphere would lead to an increase in electrical
discharges within terrestrial storms. Increases in greenhouse gases change the fluid dynamics of the weather and the sun has been in somewhat of an
abnormal cycle. The x-class megaflares have saturated the Van Allen belts with record amounts of charged particles. Can throw in the denser galactic
dust cloud we are drifting into on our way around the Milky Way as a mitigating factor too.

A question: Are increased levels of ionized particles in the upper atmosphere only due to global warming and solar flares? Could there not be more
factors contributing? Like changes in the earth's magnetosphere for other reasons, Ie., the shift of the earth's axis following last winter's
earthquake/tsunami?

Could probably assume there's an infinite amount of factors, then it boils down to how much can a human mind comprehend and correlate before it
becomes overwhelmed.. All things are connected in some form

Solar-cast:
The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet on January 13-15 becoming quiet to active during the latter half of January 15 until January 17 due to
effects from coronal hole 205 and maybe be effected by a coronal mass ejection which erupted late on January 12.

We thus expect C-flares to occur in this group.
An equatorial coronal hole is now situated at the central meridian.

We expect the fast flow from it to arrive to the Earth around January
23-24, producing a geomagnetic disturbance up to the minor storm level.

The Earth is currently inside the slow solar wind flow with an average
magnetic field, so the probability for a geomagnetic disturbance in the
next 24 hours is low.
[url=http://sidc.be/ Source: SIDC - Belgium [/url]

According to the above, we can understand the Earth´s increase of seismic activity during these days.
Everything is related...

The fast wind coming of the recurrent coronal hole that passed
the central meridian on Jan 22, arrived at the L1 point. ACE measured a
wind speed of 600 km/s.
The Bz component of the IMF went down to -10nT.
Active geomagnetic conditions are possible.
Active Region 0848 produced
several C-flares on Jan 22.
More C-flaring activity is possible.

Now, the speed has stabilized at 550km/s, with the Bz component fluctuating between + and - 10 nT.

Although, the geomagnetic field is now back to unsettled levels, we
predict unsettled to active conditions for the next 24 hours, then
followed by a decay to quiet to unsettled conditions.

Information from January the 27th:
The solar wind speed knows a revival and climbed up to 650 km/s.

The cause is possibly the last part of the recurrent coronal hole which
is ready to rotate over the westlimb. K_p went up to 6 last night.Geomagnetic conditions are calm now, we expect no disturbances the
coming 48 hours.

------End of solar and geomagnetic bulletin.

The geomagnetic activity has been high due to the solar wind. The Earth inclined towards the South producing Aurora.
Kp Index was 6!

We have to point out the 7.7 earthquake in BANDA SEA (Indonesia) on the 27th which should be one of the effects on Earth.

Furthermore, the increase of the Kp level has elevated the risk of active geomagnetic field. The solar wind is high. Therefore we should consider us
being in an ACTIVE GEOMAGNETIC ALERT for the next 6 to 12 hours having possibly other kind of events during that period of time.

For those who do not remember the meaning of a Kp 6, here is some information from the
NOAA

With only a small plage and no sunspot, the solar activity is
expected to remain very low.

Active geomagnetic conditions were
triggered yesterday by a temporary Southward rotation of theinterplanetary magnetic field Now, the N-S field component Bz is back
near 0, while the solar wind speed stays below 370 km/s. We thus expect
that the geomagnetic field will remain quiet to unsettled over the next
days.

HARARE (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake measuring an estimated 7.5 shook large areas of Zimbabwe and northern Mozambique early on Thursday, shaking
buildings from Harare to Maputo.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Web site said the quake, which struck just after midnight (2200 GMT on Wednesday), measured an estimated 7.5 and was
centred in northern Mozambique, an area not known for severe earthquakes.

Shallow quake raises damage risk
The quake was shallow, which increases the potential for damage, said Dale Grant, a geophysicist with the USGS National Earthquake Information Center
in Golden, Colo., which is a clearinghouse for temblors worldwide.

A quake nearing magnitude 8 is capable of causing tremendous damage.

“It was felt very widely in in the epicentral area, though it’s not a very heavily populated area,” Grant said. “There is certain to be
damage, but so far, we’ve had absolutely no word of damage.”

A new computer model which accurately simulates the Sun’s past few solar cycles predicts that the next cycle will be up to 50 percent stronger than
its predecessor and begin a year later than expected, scientists announced Monday.

Using the model, researchers predict that the next solar cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5
percent of the visible surface of the Sun. They also expect that the cycle will begin in late 2007 or early 2008—about six to 12 months later than
earlier predictions—and reach its peak in 2012.

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